For Beyoncé, this kind of attention had become a double-edged sword. On one hand, she was happy to do whatever she could to make the music sound the way the producers envisioned it. Of course, she also liked the attention. What artist wouldn’t? She was doing what she loved to do, and she was being acknowledged for it. What she didn’t much like were the stares from LaTavia and LeToya, who had become increasingly annoyed by the way they were being overlooked and disrespected. It was difficult for them not to blame Beyoncé. After all, it sometimes felt as if she was living not only her dream, but theirs as well.
Group Turmoil
On October 22, 1999, Destiny’s Child kicked off a tour as opening act for another female group, TLC, an act the girls had long admired. After the first date in Toronto at the Air Canada Centre, they would stay on the road until December.
Destiny’s Child ran a tight ship while on tour, even in those early days. As the tour accountant, Angie Beyincé always made sure the girls were properly paid. “I’d finish the show and go to the cash office with all the promoters and I’d count out the money,” she told the writer Aaron Hicklin in 2014. “I’m a bad chick. I don’t play. I went in there with all male promoters, and I’d count that money out. The first day I did that they were a dollar short. And I said, ‘I’m missing a dollar.’ They said, ‘Oh no, baby girl,’ to shrink me, to diminish me—‘Oh no, sweetie pie, oh no, honey, no, no.’ I just said, ‘OK, I’ll count again.’ I shared a room with the choreographer at the time, and while she was sleeping I would stay up and count all the money, do the payroll, all the expenses. I only got maybe two or three hours of sleep each day. Then I’d be back at that cash office: ‘five dollars short.’ At the end of the tour, every single dollar was accounted for.”
Though the shows were of the highest caliber and the backstage business was being admirably handled, it was while on the road with TLC that the girls in DC started to recognize what they believed were serious differences between them. The group had become divided, with Beyoncé and Kelly in one camp and LaTavia and LeToya in the other. LaTavia and LeToya had also begun to notice what they felt was more preferential treatment of Beyoncé than ever before by Mathew. “We started noticing Beyoncé was being focused on more in photo shoots and on television appearances,” LaTavia Roberson said. “And there was just this attitude going on, not really from Beyoncé but from management [she was referring to Mathew] that the group was all about her and the rest of us, even Kelly, were sort of window dressing.”
“I just became sick of it,” LeToya stated. “Mathew’s whole thing was, ‘Look, Beyoncé is gonna be singing lead and that’s the end of it. You don’t like it? Go somewhere else and find a job singing, because this is my group and what I say goes.’ He really believed that. I felt like, ‘No, this is our group, not his group. When did our group become his group?’ And then we started thinking the money was a little funny. I started thinking, ‘Wait a second, I can’t pay my bills. All these records we’re selling and I can’t pay my cell phone bill?’ ” Mathew later vigorously denied any suggestion that he had cheated the girls but in their minds at the time, as unhappy as they were with their general situation, it had become a niggle.
LeToya’s brother, Gavin Luckett, put it this way: “LeToya was like, ‘There’s no reason why Beyoncé is driving a Jaguar right now and my momma is driving this old Mazda.’ ”
It certainly couldn’t have helped when, at about this time, Beyoncé bought a champagne-colored Bentley to go along with her Jag, “an awesome little ride,” as Lyndall Locke described it. (Since Beyoncé hated to drive, Lyndall did most of the driving in that relationship.) What is not known is whether or not the money for the car came from DC earnings or her parents paid for it as a gift. Whatever the case, Beyoncé now had not only double the luxury vehicles, but double the scrutiny from LeToya and her mother, Pamela. In sworn affidavits later given by mother and daughter, both would say they repeatedly asked Mathew not only for a full accounting of income but also the opportunity to inspect the group’s records, but that these requests were always turned down. (Mathew denied owing LeToya money.)
“[The R&B group] Jagged Edge was appearing with Destiny’s Child at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion here in Houston, and backstage, they all started comparing notes,” recalled Yvonne Boyd, LaTavia’s aunt. “That’s when the girls found out that Jagged Edge was making more money than they were making, and Jagged Edge was the opening act! They were afraid to ask Mathew about it, though. I told my niece, ‘Look, Mathew works for you. You don’t work for Mathew! You need to straighten this out!’ When they finally did ask him, Mathew was enraged, I can tell you that much.”
As questions about management became more prevalent, things between the girls continued to deteriorate. “The whole sisterhood thing was going right down the drain,” was how Kelly later put it. It was true; there were days when Beyoncé and Kelly never even spoke to LaTavia and LeToya. “It was like being in a bad marriage when you have kids and you act like you’re happy,” said Beyoncé. “They lost focus,” she added of LeToya and LaTavia. “They didn’t want to do interviews, rehearse, or take voice lessons. Anybody who met us could see that me and Kelly were one group and they were another.” (It should be noted that both LeToya and LaTavia insist that they never missed press interviews or rehearsals. Also, the voice teacher hired by Mathew, Kim Wood Sandusky, is clear that she was never asked to work with them.)
Beyoncé said that she believed LeToya and LaTavia had become distracted by the twins from Jagged Edge—Brian and Brandon Casey—who shared the bill with the girls on a few dates (not on the TLC tour but elsewhere during the year). “Boys got into their heads,” Beyoncé concluded to writer Lola Ogunnaike. After one show with the band, Beyoncé told Kelly backstage, “Those greasy boys ain’t going anywhere near my vagitis”—a slang word the girls used to use for vagina; LeToya actually coined the word. Also, because Jagged Edge’s initials were JE, Beyoncé used to call the group “Juicy Earwax.”
Apparently there was also some sort of fracas on the road with Jagged Edge when Mathew ejected LeToya’s mom, Pamela, from the tour bus one night in Baton Rouge. In a sworn affidavit she would later give, Pamela Luckett claimed that Mathew called the police on her, forcing her off the bus. She said that the only reason she had been present was because LeToya had been suffering from asthma and needed her mother. But Mathew would later say that Pamela was not covered by the group’s insurance policy and that this was the reason for her eviction. Jagged Edge’s Brian Casey then went on record saying that he and his brother, Brandon, were so appalled that one of the mothers would be kicked off the tour bus that their group decided to vacate the bus as well. “We were just so disgusted,” he said. “Not for one minute did those girls [Beyoncé and Kelly] put themselves in LeToya’s shoes.” (Following this incident, Mathew once again attempted to terminate LeToya. She was later reinstated.)
After Baton Rouge, LaToya’s and LaTavia’s discontentment was apparent to all. “I actually pulled Mathew aside,” said the girls’ makeup artist, Reggie Wells, “and said, ‘I think you’re going to have to pull those two out of the group. They seem not very thrilled to be doing this thing.’ He looked at me and nodded as if this wasn’t the first time he’d heard it.”
“Then there was the problem of being on television and doing acceptance speeches,” added LaTavia’s aunt, Yvonne Boyd.
A recent highlight for DC had been the winning of their first major trophies at the Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards, where they won three honors, including Best R&B Soul Single for their first Columbia/Sony release, “No, No, No.” During their acceptance speech, all four looked fetching in their gold-and-copper, Indian-inspired bare-midriff wardrobe. Beyoncé wore hot pants under a long sarong skirt that was cut on one side for maximum leg exposure, a strange but somehow captivating look. At the podium, she didn’t take the center spot, though. She appeared content to allow LaTavia to control the acceptance speech. LeToya got in a few words, too, as Be
yoncé simply smiled and nodded. “This award is dedicated to Miss Andretta Tillman,” LaTavia announced to the cheering crowd. It was only when she and LeToya ran out of things to say, and the music began to swell, signaling the time for the girls to leave the stage, that Beyoncé demurely added, “We want to thank our fans.”
“LaTavia usually did the speaking at those things because she was just a better speaker,” said Yvonne. “She was a quicker study. Beyoncé took longer to get it together. But when LaTavia would take over, it upset Tina. ‘Oh no,’ she would say. ‘Beyoncé is the leader and she should be the one doing the talking, not LaTavia.’ That showed me that behind the scenes, Tina was just as determined as Mathew to make sure Beyoncé shined. It wasn’t a surprise, though. Of course, all the mothers wanted their daughters to shine. But it was becoming pretty clear that Beyoncé had an edge the other girls didn’t have.”
Sour Energy
November 2, 1999—Greenville, South Carolina
The energy around here is very sour,” Beyoncé stated.
“Not really . . . but . . . whatever,” LeToya remarked as she shrugged her shoulders.
The girls were backstage following a performance at the Bi-Lo Center on the TLC tour. On this evening, their dressing room was full of people—musicians, stage crew, people coming and going. If Tina had been one of those present, there most certainly wouldn’t have been a disagreement between the girls in front of witnesses, but she wasn’t there. Tension between the group members had been building all day, from soundcheck through performance, and now, as they were packing up for the next stop.
If one were to delineate LaTavia and LeToya’s grievances, it would come down to two. Rightly or wrongly (and Mathew has consistently denied any impropriety) they had questions about the money they were earning, and they felt they were not getting enough attention both on record and onstage. Unfortunately, these were subjects over which Beyoncé and Kelly had virtually no control. Or as Kelly put it in Greenville, “I ain’t the manager. When I manage a group and you’re in it, then we can talk. Look at your contracts. Does it say Kelly Rowland—Manager? No, it does not.”
“You say you want to know what we’re thinking,” LeToya declared, “but every time me and LaTavia say what’s on our hearts, you and Beyoncé jump down our throats.”
“What is it you want me to do?” Beyoncé asked, raising her voice. She said that she’d already had many conversations with her father about the possibility of LaTavia and LeToya singing more leads. He simply wasn’t open to the idea. She didn’t see what else she could do. She suggested the girls speak up for themselves. Instead of coming to her, she said, they should set up a meeting with Mathew, especially LaTavia, who had known him since she was eight years old. However, LaTavia said Mathew made her feel disrespected. She said she’d tried to talk to him in the past, but felt that he was not interested in what she had to say. She felt she had “no voice” where he was concerned.
According to observers of the disagreement, Beyoncé then pointed out that she and her mother had recently watched an archival video of Diana Ross and the Supremes performing on a television program, and Miss Ross was wearing two sets of earrings on each ear to set her apart from the other girls, who just had one set per ear. Also, she said Ross was purposely blocking the camera from seeing the other two Supremes. “And I would never do that!” Beyoncé added. “I don’t need to be a bitch,” she concluded, “all I need is my talent.”
One of the other girls pointed out that there was no reason for Beyoncé to try to separate herself. Cameramen already knew to follow her to the exclusion of the others because “someone tells them what to do, and I’m not sayin’ who . . .”
As the girls disagreed, the observers in the room turned their heads from one to the other, as if at a tennis match. “I’m not gonna live my life this way, with everybody knowin’ our business,” Beyoncé finally said. With that, she stormed off.
When upset, Beyoncé would usually vacate the premises. She was good for confrontation only to a point, and then she could take no more. Either she would leave or she would shut down and conceal her feelings. “The silent treatment was her weapon of choice,” Lyndall Locke would say. “She could tell you all she needed to tell you just being very quiet and staring you down. You didn’t want to get the silent treatment from Beyoncé Knowles,” he concluded, laughing, “and I should know, because I got it many times.”
Kelly was more vocal. She’d been defending herself and her position in the group for many years. She would say what was on her mind, and be quite clear about it. “Y’all have issues with Mathew Knowles, not me and Beyoncé,” she told them. “Stop throwing shade at me and Beyoncé when the truth is that you’re pissed off at Mathew Knowles.”
“But he doesn’t care about us,” LaTavia said.
“Well, make him care,” Kelly told her. “Y’all are half of Destiny’s Child, aren’t you? Make him care!”
Disaffirmation
It was December 15, 1999, when attorney Randy A. Bowman stepped off the elevator at Music World’s headquarters in Houston, walked into Mathew Knowles’s office, and handed him two certified letters. In separate but identical correspondence written on December 14, both LaTavia Roberson and LeToya Luckett proclaimed that they were “disaffirming” their personal management contracts with him, dated June 9, 1997. “This does not in any way impact my status as a member of Destiny’s Child,” said the letter. “I fully intend to continue as a member of Destiny’s Child.”
The girls further demanded that Mathew not transact any new business on their behalf either individually or as members of the group. “You do not have the authority to do so,” the letter read. Mathew was instructed that all business should now be handled through attorney Bowman. Bowman had also dispatched a letter to Columbia/Sony attorney John Ingrassia indicating that his clients were now contemplating new management, though both fully expected to remain with Destiny’s Child.
Kelly would later testify to a contentious chain of events that may have been the catalyst for LaTavia and LeToya’s decision. A couple of weeks earlier, LaTavia didn’t show up for a European promotional tour, “and in Destiny’s Child we don’t ever do anything like that,” Kelly said. LaTavia insisted she was sick with a 104-degree fever. When Mathew got the call that she wasn’t going to make it, he wasn’t really very upset. He just sprang into action. They certainly weren’t going to cancel the tour; he knew that much.
“Well, what are we gonna do?” LeToya asked him.
“We’re going on,” Mathew said. “Junella [Segura, the group’s choreographer] can take LaTavia’s place.”
As always, Mathew was focused on pushing ahead, not allowing anything to get in the way of the group’s forward momentum. Beyoncé agreed with him that it was a viable solution, as did Kelly. However, LeToya, often the lone dissenter, was not on board. “Uh-uh. This is our group member,” she said. “You can’t just replace a group member because she’s sick.” Though LeToya always spoke her mind, she was never much of a match for Mathew.
After he got the letters, Mathew summoned Beyoncé and Kelly. “I just got this from LeToya and LaTavia,” he said when the girls walked into his office. Both girls were stunned when they read the correspondence. “But we were with them just yesterday, and they seemed fine,” Beyoncé said. In fact, the group had just given a concert in Houston for KRBE at the Compaq Center, and it had gone well. “They want their own manager? Is that even possible?” she asked, bewildered.
“No way,” Kelly emphatically stated, according to what she would later recall in a deposition. “You can’t have two people managing the same group.”
“But wait. That’s not true,” Beyoncé offered, again as per her own deposition. “We did it when Miss Ann was managing us with my dad.”
“That was different,” Mathew said.
“Not really,” Beyoncé continued. “I’m just saying maybe we shouldn’t discount it altogether. It’s been done before.”
Beyon
cé noted that Mathew and Andretta Tillman had co-managed the group for a number of years, and she wondered if that prior situation was the foundation for LeToya and LaTavia’s present request. However, Kelly observed that the only reason that previous arrangement worked—if in fact it could be said to have worked—was because “Mathew and Miss Ann were on the same page and doing things together.” However, what LaTavia and LeToya were proposing, Kelly observed, was a scenario where two managers would likely be disagreeing on just about everything. In her mind, it wasn’t even an option.
Beyoncé still wasn’t convinced, and Mathew could read her ambivalence. He didn’t think it would work, he said, but if she wanted him to, he would look into it further. However, he felt sure that their record company wasn’t going to approve. “If you want to take that dog for a walk, fine,” he told her, “but if it bites us on the ass, that’s gonna be on us.” Beyoncé felt she had to listen to her father’s viewpoint. She opined that perhaps something better could have been worked out if they only had more time. However, LeToya and LaTavia had waited until just two weeks before filming of the video for “Say My Name,” because, at least in Beyoncé’s view, they thought that this was when the group would be at its most vulnerable. “But the more I think about it, the less surprised I am by it,” she concluded. “Haven’t we been expecting this from them for years?” She said that the only thing she found surprising about it “is that it took them this long to do it.”
The more they talked about it, the more upset Beyoncé and Kelly became, until finally both were very emotional. “We told them to take up their grievances with you,” Beyoncé told Mathew. “But I sure didn’t think they’d do it this way.”
Becoming Beyoncé Page 26